by Lisa Shearin
“Like all living creatures, demons come in all shapes and sizes,” DiMatteo countered.
“In other words,” I said, “It doesn’t take a big pit to make big problems.”
Roy took a deep breath. “Okay, saying I believe ‘demonic bacteria’—and I might as well—I wouldn’t think whoever opened the Hellpit here would be inclined to close it again. When we find it, how do we close it?”
“We don’t,” DiMatteo told him. “It would take a portalkeeper. Two of the officially documented Hellpits were closed by extremely powerful portalkeepers.”
Roy swore. “Those are rare birds.”
“They don’t openly advertise their presence for good reason. People who have the gift of opening or closing dimensional portals or tears are in great demand—and most often by individuals or organizations who you would not want to have notice you. Wars, invasions, and criminal acts of every sort can be greatly simplified with a strategically placed portal. Vivienne Sagadraco will hopefully know the name of a portalkeeper who is powerful enough to close our Hellpit.”
“It can be yours,” Roy said. “’Cause it sure as hell ain’t mine.”
“I’m not that great with math,” I said, “so correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s been four days since Halloween and two days since the full moon. Detective Fred Ash of the NYPD told Ian and me yesterday that they’d only found out about Brimstone a few days ago. That would coincide with Halloween, but wouldn’t the manufacturing process take longer than that? Wouldn’t that imply that the Hellpit was open before Halloween?”
All eyes went to Dr. Claire Cheban, the SPI lab director. She didn’t look old enough to be out of college, let alone have a PhD and be in charge of a lab like SPI’s.
“We’re still analyzing the drug sample,” she said, “but brimstone in its molten state is unstable, especially when combined with two of the other ingredients we found in the drug. As Director DiMatteo said, the composition of the drug itself is incredibly complex. From raw ingredients to finished product would take at least four days, and that’s a conservative estimate.”
“Sounds like whoever opened the Hellpit missed his window,” Ian noted. “Or didn’t need one. Is it possible to open a pit anytime?”
“It’s not only possible,” DiMatteo replied, “but in the case we’re faced with, I believe it is probable. Contrary to what Commander Benoit said, we’re not dealing with a dumbass. Greedy, yes. Dumbass, no. To open a Hellpit regardless of dimensional thinness and moon phase would take an individual with a frightening level of power and skill.”
An assessment like that coming from a man who took rock-hunting excursions to Hell meant a lot of scary.
Ian and I exchanged a glance.
Halloween night had been the gala opening of the Mythos exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of the exhibits had been Viktor Kain’s Dragon Eggs. Another had been a marble statue of three harpies. The real statue had been waylaid in London and had been replaced with three actual Grecian harpies that had been put into a state of stasis until the night of the gala when an unknown—and scary powerful—sorcerer or sorceress had reanimated the harpies to steal the Dragon Eggs. Before, during, and after the theft, they’d also killed a couple of security guards, terrorized the guests, and shattered a section of the window wall in the Met’s Sackler Wing when they escaped into the night over Central Park.
We’d never found who was ultimately behind the diamond theft, but we strongly suspected it was the same individual who had enough magical mojo to put three harpies into suspended animation and disguise them as a marble statue.
It sounded like one of those mega-mages hadn’t left town and was now working with a demon lord.
“Just because it’s called a Hellpit,” said Sandra Niles, our other commando unit commander, “does that mean it’s an actual, physical hole in the ground, or could it be similar to a door, like a portal?”
“It’ll be a hole in the ground,” DiMatteo confirmed. “But it can be closed like a portal—unless it’s completely open.”
“When it’s completely open, how can it be closed?” Sandra asked.
“There’s never been one completely open before, so I don’t know if it can be closed.”
Silence.
“Uh, Marty, there’s a lot of holes in the ground under Manhattan.” Leave it to Sandra to be able to ignore the bomb Marty just dropped and move on. “Could you narrow it down for us?”
“Brimstone solidifies within an hour after being exposed to surface air. It wouldn’t matter how quickly it could be gotten into a sealed container. That would put the pit less than an hour from the lab, probably much closer. At the same time, it would need to be a location that could be easily secured.”
DiMatteo paused, his expression slightly disturbed. Again, coming from a guy who studied demons for a living, this was alarming.
“There is a rather concerning possibility,” he said. “I’ve compared it to black holes—”
Hellpits and black holes? This wasn’t gonna be good.
“Humans have never been near a black hole, yet there are certain behaviors that scientists accept as fact. Once a Hellpit is open ‘all the way,’ there’s no reason that it would be limited to a finite size. In theory, the size of the Hellpit opening would only dictate what size demons could gain access to our dimension. Smaller opening, smaller demons. Larger opening, larger demons. Unless the individual who opened the pit is remaining with it 24/7 to control its growth, theoretically there wouldn’t be a size limit.”
No one moved. Those who were still eating stopped chewing.
“On the upside—”
“There’s an upside to Armageddon?” Roy muttered.
“Yes, there is. The presence at this time of any smaller-class demons could indicate probable proximity to the Hellpit’s location.”
“So, if people are being eaten in Midtown, chances are the Hellpit’s in Midtown?”
“Correct.”
That confirmed it. Marty didn’t get humor or sarcasm. Bless his heart.
“Regarding Dr. DiMatteo’s comments on the proximity of the lab to the Hellpit,” Claire Cheban began, “understand that they would need to have enough distance between them to ensure that no heat or flame from the Hellpit would come in contact with two of the ingredients found in our dimension. Those two ingredients are highly unstable and flammable.”
Note the location in the city of any large explosion. Check.
“And Hell does have a well-deserved reputation for being flammable,” DiMatteo noted, with complete sincerity.
“The lab where it’s being manufactured would need to be state-of-the-art.” Dr. Cheban proceeded to launch into a ten-minute, PhD-level lecture of the chemical properties of each ingredient she’d isolated, with an accompanying rundown of how contact with molten heat would make them go “boom.”
When she’d finished, Roy spoke up. “And that, boys and girls, is why there aren’t any meth labs in Hell.”
“So what kind of equipment are we talking about?” Ian asked. “And where would they get it?”
I knew where he was going with this. Some of Rake’s real estate holdings were elven-owned laboratories and research facilities. We’d asked him to check if any had been working on any new drugs. He’d said he’d check and get back to us. It’d been a little over two hours. Nothing from Rake. Maybe his “monitors” had to check their records. Maybe not. Either way, I knew who Ian would be calling when we got out of this meeting.
“I’ll e-mail you a list of the equipment, and where each item can be bought.” Cheban was typing insanely fast on her phone. “You can’t get these things on eBay or off the shelf at Labs ‘R’ Us, and the companies that manufacture them don’t let just anyone walk in off the street and buy them. And then there’s the cost—”
“We suspect that our pharmaceutical entrepreneurs have a loaded angel investor,” Ian told her.
“If money’s no object, they could buy—or pay to have stolen—wh
atever they needed.”
There were beeps and tunes around the room as Cheban’s e-mail came through.
“Check for thefts of items one through five,” she told us, referring to the numbered list she’d sent. “One and two are the most expensive and hardest to get.”
When the meeting concluded, Ian made a beeline for the elevators down to the motor pool and motioned me to follow.
“We going to see Rake?” I asked.
“Not yet. Now that we’ve had dinner, how about dessert?”
20
BY the time Yasha stopped in front of Kitty’s Confections on Bleeker Street in the Village, Ian had told me that we were here for more than a nighttime snack of red velvet cupcakes.
Apparently Kitty had a secret—a big one—and she’d kept it from everyone. Everyone except Vivienne Sagadraco, who, when the need proved great, had told Alain Moreau and Ian.
Kitty could close portals—big ones.
That implied that Kitty had the same level of power as the mega-mage who’d opened the Hellpit in the first place. I was having a tough time wrapping my head around that one. I was betting that the mega-mage, who’d essentially put out the welcome mat for the denizens of Hell, couldn’t bake an angel food cake that was reported to have made actual angels weep.
Too bad this magical confrontation couldn’t be settled with a bake-off.
“I take it from the personal visit, Kitty’s going to be less than enthused about helping us,” I said.
“Significantly less than enthused,” Ian replied. “She had a bad experience. Her last name, Poertner, is German for Porter. Most people with that name had a distant ancestor who was stationed at a castle door. Kitty’s people opened and closed a bigger kind of door.”
“Dimensional portals,” I said in realization.
Ian nodded. “The name’s the same; the job couldn’t be more different. For over a thousand years, Kitty’s family have been the supernatural world’s doorkeepers, or to be more exact, portalkeepers. Her specialty is stabilizing and closing dimensional rifts, which is essentially what we’re dealing with here. We need to secure Kitty’s help now, because it won’t do us a damned bit of good to find the Hellpit if we don’t have anyone who can close it.”
“I wouldn’t think that’d be a problem. Kitty’s awesome. When she hears that the world will literally go to Hell in a handbasket if she doesn’t help, I’m sure she’ll be glad to slam a door in some demonic faces.”
“It’s a lot more complicated—and dangerous—than that.”
Lately, it seemed like everything was.
Kitty was due to close the shop in another fifteen minutes. Yasha dropped us off out front.
When we came in, Kitty took one look at our faces and motioned us straight back to the kitchen while she locked the door and turned off the lights in the front of the shop.
I’d never seen Kitty with any expression other than happy and smiling.
She wasn’t doing either one now.
Mind reading wasn’t one of Kitty’s talents, but she seemed to know why we were there. Then again, Ian had come by to get lemon-blueberry scones for me after the squid demon had tried to drag me through the portal in the parking garage. Ian had known about Kitty’s ability, so I was sure he’d told her what had nearly happened to me. I realized that he’d known then that we’d be visiting Kitty for just this very reason, and he’d given her time to start thinking about her answer before he’d had to ask her the question—and before there was the pressure of a critical need.
A wise man, my partner.
Yep, Kitty knew exactly why we were here.
But it didn’t change the fact that we were here to ask Kitty to do something that terrified her.
It sucked to be the bad guys.
Being the one who’d nearly been dragged through the garage portal, I suddenly felt like the visual aid for Kitty’s impending guilt trip.
Kitty stuck her head in the kitchen and looked at me. “Are we going to need cupcakes for this?”
I sighed. “I could sure use one . . . or three.”
When life turned to crap, some people drank. I mainlined sugar.
Kitty returned to the kitchen, set a tray of miniature red velvet cupcakes down in front of us, and went to the big stainless steel refrigerator and brought out a gallon of milk. I found cups and a roll of paper towels and was good to go.
“And the people rejoiced,” I murmured, eying the cream-cheese-iced mouthfuls of culinary perfection. The cupcakes in the cupcake shops that’d sprung up to rival Starbucks in their numbers all had a Mount Everest tower of icing. I’d admit (though not to Kitty) that when I hadn’t been near her bakery and was hit with a craving, I’d gone in those shops. More than once, I’d ended up with icing up my nose. Kitty’s cupcakes had a perfect cake to icing ratio. My ultimate cupcake test came when I took the paper off. If the cake couldn’t support the weight of its own icing and fell over . . . no, thank you. It was possible to have too much of a good thing, and that included icing. I drew the line at what I called bobblehead cupcakes.
“Where is it?” she asked us.
I frowned around a mouthful of cupcake.
“The portal,” Kitty clarified. “Where is it?”
I glanced at Ian.
“It’s not exactly a portal,” he said. “As to where, we don’t know. Yet.”
She regarded him with steady suspicion. It was an expression I’d never seen on her before. “If it’s not exactly a portal, what exactly is it?”
I glanced at Ian again. I was really grateful to have a mouthful of cupcake. It’d be rude to answer Kitty’s questions while eating.
“It’s a Hellpit,” he told her. “Open somewhere under the city.”
“Full apogee?”
“Getting close.”
“Who opened it?”
“We’re trying to find out.”
Ian told Kitty everything we knew so far. Sad thing was it didn’t take long.
“And when you find it, you want me to close it.”
“We would like your advice, and if you’re willing, your help.”
Kitty glanced at me. “Your partner’s becoming quite the diplomat.”
I tried a smile. “I haven’t noticed. He must like you more than he does me.”
“He just wants something.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Hmm, I think that’s a man thing.”
Ian raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, I’m just trying to lighten things up. If any situation ever needed lightening, it’d be an impending demonic invasion.”
“Why?” Kitty asked.
I puzzled over that one. “Marty says demons have always wanted our world. Bert thinks it’s the beaches.”
Now it was Kitty’s turn to be baffled. “I meant why would someone open a Hellpit?”
“Other than access to molten brimstone,” Ian said, “we don’t know.”
“You said it was likely open before Halloween.”
“That’s right.”
“That means a lot of power was involved.”
“We think that, too.”
“Such beings of power would have a motive other than getting an ingredient for a drug.”
“Even if they were being paid a lot of money?” I asked.
“It’s been my experience—and that of my family—that those who can open a portal at will are rarely lacking money, nor can the things they want be bought with money. If you can find out what that motivation is, you’d be a couple steps closer to finding them or the Hellpit.”
“If we do find it, will you help us?”
“If you don’t find it soon, you’ll be beyond my help or anyone else’s. After a major portal has been open for a full cycle of the moon, nothing short of a team of archangels can close it.”
“We’re going to find it,” I told her.
“A word of warning: it could very well be contained in a small pocket dimension to conceal it from anyone who might stumble onto it.”
“I can see portals,” I told her.
Kitty gave me a quick, startled look.
“You didn’t tell her?” I asked Ian.
“That information is need to know. When I was here yesterday, Kitty didn’t need to know.”
“As far as I’m concerned, she does now.” I looked at Kitty. She was regarding me with something that looked almost like pity. “What?”
“If that gets out, you’re in more danger than I am.”
I shrugged. “I’m a seer. I already have a bull’s-eye from that. I can be the same amount of dead from two bull’s-eyes than one. I don’t know how I picked up this portal-seeing thing, but I have a sinking feeling that knowing how I got it isn’t going to help me get rid of it. Besides, from what I understand, it’s quite the resume enhancer.”
Kitty smiled. Now that was the Kitty I knew.
I smiled back. “Sucks to be us right now, doesn’t it?”
She glanced at Ian. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“You always have a choice.”
“One option could save the world; the other definitely damns it. Not what I’d call much of a choice. I’ll make you a deal—you do your job—and get me what I need—and I’ll do mine.”
* * *
We really couldn’t have asked for more than that. If we found the Hellpit, Kitty would close it—or at least she’d try. It wasn’t like anyone, including her, had on-the-job experience slamming the stairway to Hell.
Kitty had sent us on our way with a dozen cupcakes in her bakery’s trademark pink box.
We’d walked out with cupcakes and a promise to help prevent demonic Armageddon. Now that was what I called a good night’s work.
I refrained from diving into the box. I had a question for Ian, and I knew Yasha would appreciate me not getting cupcake crumbs all over the backseat of his partner.
“What did Kitty mean by ‘get me what I need’?”
Ian blew out his breath and leaned his head back against the seat rest. “An anchor mage.”
“Which is?”
“Pretty much what it sounds like. A mage who can anchor Kitty to this dimension while she works.”
